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Reply to: Plant traits alone are good predictors of ecosystem properties when used carefully

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 335–336 (2023)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 16 January 2023

replying to: Hagan, J. G., Henn, J. J. & Osterman, W. H. A. Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01920-x (2023).

In a recent publication1, we analysed a long-term experiment to show that despite moderately strong links between traits and ecosystem properties within years, these links could not be used to accurately explain long-term variation in ecosystem properties. Hagan et al.2 agree that ‘functional traits are not necessarily the panacea they are often considered to be’. However, they also have concerns on our study, claiming that (1) there is a mismatch between the functional traits and the ecosystem properties that we analysed and (2) that due to our study design, trait variation was limited in some plots. Below, we respond to both critiques.

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Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Fons van der Plas, Thomas Schröder-Georgi.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Fons van der Plas & Liesje Mommer

  2. Systematic Botany and Functional Biodiversity, Life Science, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Thomas Schröder-Georgi, Alexandra Weigelt, Kathryn Barry & Christian Wirth

  3. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Alexandra Weigelt, Kathryn Barry, Adriana Alzate, Nico Eisenhauer, Anke Hildebrandt, Christiane Roscher & Christian Wirth

  4. Terrestrial Ecology Research Group, School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Sebastian Meyer & Wolfgang Weisser

  5. Aquaculture and Fisheries Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, the Netherlands

    Adriana Alzate

  6. Agroécologie, AgroSup Dijon, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Université de Bourgogne, Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Dijon, France

    Romain L. Barnard

  7. Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Nina Buchmann

  8. Department of Experimental Plant Ecology, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

    Hans de Kroon

  9. Institute of Ecology and Evolution, University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Anne Ebeling & Winfried Voigt

  10. Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Nico Eisenhauer

  11. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Christof Engels

  12. Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Markus Fischer

  13. Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Gerd Gleixner, Ernst-Detlef Schulze & Christian Wirth

  14. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany

    Anke Hildebrandt

  15. Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

    Anke Hildebrandt

  16. Geoecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Eva Koller-France & Yvonne Oelmann

  17. Institute of Geography and Geoecology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Sophia Leimer & Wolfgang Wilcke

  18. Ecotron Européen de Montpellier, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Montferrier-sur-Lez, France

    Alexandru Milcu

  19. Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5175 (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-Université de Montpellier-Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier-Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes), Montpellier, France

    Alexandru Milcu

  20. Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Pascal A. Niklaus

  21. UFZ, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department Physiological Diversity, Leipzig, Germany

    Christiane Roscher

  22. Institute of Landscape Ecology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Christoph Scherber

  23. Centre for Biodiversity Monitoring, Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Bonn, Germany

    Christoph Scherber

  24. Geobotany, Faculty of Biology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Michael Scherer-Lorenzen

  25. Centre of Biodiversity and Sustainable Land Use, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Stefan Scheu

  26. J.F. Blumenbach Institute of Zoology and Anthropology, Animal Ecology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Stefan Scheu

  27. Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Bernhard Schmid

  28. Institute of Ecology, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Bernhard Schmid

  29. Leuphana University Lüneburg, Institute of Ecology, Lüneburg, Germany

    Vicky Temperton

  30. Agroecology, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany

    Teja Tscharntke

Authors
  1. Fons van der Plas
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  2. Thomas Schröder-Georgi
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  3. Alexandra Weigelt
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  4. Kathryn Barry
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  5. Sebastian Meyer
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  6. Adriana Alzate
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  7. Romain L. Barnard
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  8. Nina Buchmann
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  9. Hans de Kroon
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  10. Anne Ebeling
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  13. Markus Fischer
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  16. Eva Koller-France
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  17. Sophia Leimer
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  18. Alexandru Milcu
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  19. Liesje Mommer
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  20. Pascal A. Niklaus
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  21. Yvonne Oelmann
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  22. Christiane Roscher
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  23. Christoph Scherber
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  24. Michael Scherer-Lorenzen
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  25. Stefan Scheu
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  26. Bernhard Schmid
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  27. Ernst-Detlef Schulze
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  28. Vicky Temperton
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  29. Teja Tscharntke
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  30. Winfried Voigt
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  31. Wolfgang Weisser
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  32. Wolfgang Wilcke
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  33. Christian Wirth
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Contributions

F.v.d.P. wrote the initial draft of the manuscript. T.S.-G., A.W., K.B., S.M., A.A., R.L.B., N.B., H.d.K., A.E., N.E., C.E., M.F., G.G., A.H., E.K.-F., S.L., A.M., L.M., P.A.N., Y.O., C.R., C.S., M.S.-L., S.S., B.S., E.-D.S., V.T., T.T., W.V., W. Weisser, W. Wilcke and C.W. helped edit the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fons van der Plas.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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van der Plas, F., Schröder-Georgi, T., Weigelt, A. et al. Reply to: Plant traits alone are good predictors of ecosystem properties when used carefully. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 335–336 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01957-y

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